Letter to the Editor: Equal inalienable rights

By KEN LARSENSalt Lake City

Dear Editor,

Please indulge your imagination with me for a moment. First, let's imagine there is a powerful organization that calls itself "The Church of the Sex Goddess". Then, let's imagine some of its members have created a monument to celebrate the ancient origins of their culture. Then, imagine they place copies of their monument on government land and in government buildings. Imagine, in your eyes, that their monument is extremely offensive, obscene, lewd, repulsive, and downright evil as an assault on your beliefs and your culture. Now, imagine the overwhelming majority of your countrymen supporting the monument and wishing it to be placed everywhere. Imagine the highest court in the land declaring it to be okay for the government to provide the means for the display of the monuments, as long as the intent is to show the history of a culture and not to promote it.

Without delving into legal issues, isn't it possible you might want to say, "let us only ask government to do unto others what we would have them ask government to do unto us"? Perhaps I have helped you to understand the feelings of some Americans whose beliefs and non-beliefs are in the minority. Let us remember that both America and Utah were founded by people of minority beliefs, escaping the dominion of a majority culture. Let us remember that when the Founders said we were all created equal, they did not say, "except people with different beliefs". Perhaps you believe the Ten Commandments pertain to God, in which case they should be rendered unto God. Let us render unto government only those things that pertain to government, i.e., the security of the equal inalienable rights of each of us.